What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files written by a web server to your hard drive. They can only be read or edited by the web site that originally wrote them and are typically used to recognise you as the same person across each request you make to view a web page.
Cookie Categories
To assist you in understanding our use of cookies we have adopted the four cookie categories created by the International Chamber of Commerce. These are:
a) Strictly necessary
Generally these cookies will be essential first-party session cookies, and if persistent or third party, there should be a good justification for this. Not all first-party session cookies will fall into the ‘strictly necessary’ category for the purposes of the legislation. Strictly necessary cookies will generally be used to store a unique identifier to manage and identify the user as unique to other users currently viewing the website, in order to provide a consistent and accurate service to the user.
Examples include:
- Remembering previous actions (e.g. entered text) when navigating back to a page in the same session.
- Managing and passing security tokens to different services within a website to identify the visitor’s status (e.g. logged in or not)
- To maintain tokens for the implementation of secure areas of the website
- To route customers to specific versions/applications of a service, such as might be used during a technical migration
These cookies will not be used
- To gather information that could be used for marketing to the user.
- To remember customer preferences or user ID’s outside a single session (unless the user has requested this function).
b) Performance
These cookies can be first or third party, session or persistent cookies. To fall within this category their usage should be limited to performance and website improvement.
- Web analytics—where the data collected is limited to the website operator’s use only, for managing the performance and design of the site. These cookies can be third-party cookies but the information must be for the exclusive use of the publisher of the website visited.
- Ad response rates—where the data is used exclusively for calculating response rates (click-through rates) to improve the effectiveness of advertising purchased on a site external to the destination website. If the same cookie is used to retarget adverts on a third-party site this would fall outside the performance category (see category d)
- Affiliate tracking—where the cookie is used to let affiliates know that a visitor to a site visited a partner site some time later and if that visit resulted in the use or purchase of a product or service, including details of the product and service purchased. Affiliate tracking cookies allow the affiliate to improve the effectiveness of their site. If the same cookie is used to retarget adverts this would fall outside the performance category (see category d)
- Error management—Measuring errors presented on a website, typically this will be to support service improvement or complaint management and will generally be closely linked with web analytics.
- Testing designs—Testing variations of design, typically using A/B or multivariate testing, to ensure a consistent look and feel is maintained for the user of the site in the current and subsequent sessions. These cookies should not be used to re-target adverts, if they are, they should be placed in category d) as well.
c) Functionality
These cookies can be first party, third party, session or persistent cookies. These cookies will typically be the result of a user action, but might also be implemented in the delivery of a service not explicitly requested but offered to the user. They can also be used to prevent the user being offered a service again that had previously been offered to that user and rejected.
Examples include:
- Remembering settings a user has applied to a website such as layout, font size, preferences, colours etc.
- Remembering a choice such as not to be asked again to fill in a questionnaire.
- Detecting if a service has already been offered, such as offering a tutorial on future visits to the website.
- Providing information to allow an optional service to function such as offering a live chat session.
- Fulfilling a request by the user such as submitting a comment.
These cookies should not be used to re-target adverts, if they are, they should be placed in category d) as well.
d) Targeting/advertising
These cookies will usually be third-party cookies, although if a user is visiting the advertising network’s own website it is technically possible these could be first party. They will always be persistent but time-limited cookies. These cookies can be associated with services provided by the third party but this is not always the case. These cookies contain a unique key that is able to distinguish individual users’ browsing habits or store a code that can be translated into to a set of browsing habits or preferences using information stored elsewhere. Generally speaking, the privacy statement should indicate if the cookie is being used as part of an advertising network. Cookies may also be used to limit the number times a user sees a particular ad on a website and to measure the effectiveness of a particular campaign.
Examples include:
- Cookies placed by advertising networks to collect browsing habits in order to target relevant adverts to the user. The site the user is visiting need not actually be serving adverts, but often this will also be the case.
- Cookies placed by advertising networks in conjunction with a service implemented by the website to increase functionality, such as commenting on a blog, adding a site to the user’s social network, providing maps or counters of visitors to a site.
Cookies used by Pinnguaq.com
We use cookies on the website however, we do not collect or store personal data.. When someone visits our website we collect standard internet log information. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the website. We collect this information in a way which does not identify anyone. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information in the site we will be up front about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it. The list below provides an overview of all the cookies used by the Pinnguaq website and the purpose of the cookie. Alongside each cookie is a category level which is described further in the section “Cookie categories”.
Pinnguaq.com sets the following cookies:
| Name | Purpose | Expires | Category |
| _ga and _gat | Used by Google Analytics. This helps us count how many people visit Pinnguaq.com by tracking if you have visited before | 2 years | Performance |
| _utma | Used by Google Analytics. Like _ga, this lets us know if you’ve visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new to Pinnguaq.com or to a certain page | 2 years | Performance |
| _utmb | Used by Google Analytics. This works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on Pinnguaq.com | 30 minutes | Performance |
| _utmc | Used by Google Analytics. This works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser | when you close your browser | Performance |
| _utmz | Used by Google Analytics. This tells us how you reached Pinnguaq.com (like from another website or a search engine) | 6 months | Performance |
| analytics_nextpage_call | Used by Google Analytics. This lets us know the next page you visit on Pinnguaq.com, so we can make journeys better | when you close your browser | Performance |
| GDS_successEvents and GDS_analyticsTokens | Used by Google Analytics. These help us identify how you use Pinnguaq.com so we can make the site better | 4 months | Performance |
| SESS* | Pinnguaq.com sets a session cookie (sess*) when a user comes to the website. This cookie is used to store information that a user is logged in or not as they travel around the site. | After 1 month | Stricty necessary |
| _has_js | Used by Pinnguaq.com to determine if browser has javascript enabled | when you close your browser | Performance |
| PREFVISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | Used by YouTube to display video content. The video and audio files are stored on YouTube and these cookies are used to store information about preferences and control display. | At the end of the calendar year | Functionality |
| YSC | Used by YouTube to store information for advertising and analytics. | when you close your browser | Performance |
| Social Media related cookies | Cookies served to deliver the Social Media share buttons. Third party cookies are set to allow users to share images. | Vary from session to 10 years | Functionality |
Managing Cookies
Pinnguaq.com has been designed to use cookies to enhance your browsing experience. If you would prefer, you can change your browser settings to remove and/or prevent the use of cookies however parts of the website will no longer work as intended and browsing errors may occur. Find out more about managing your cookies.
Google Analytics provides an opt-out browser ad-on.
Accessibility Plan
This Accessibility Plan provides the plan and steps Pinnguaq Association will take to prevent and remove accessibility barriers to employees and those accessing its services, and accommodation procedures.
Learn more about the accessibility plan here.